


i love you. i want us both to eat well.

by zeitgeistofnow



Category: Naruto
Genre: Family Feels, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, Ramen, this is so self indulgent omg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29973126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeistofnow/pseuds/zeitgeistofnow
Summary: the broth makes a soft bubbling noise as it starts to simmer and iruka startles in his seat, staring at the saucepan with a terror that doesn’t feel as disproportionate as he knows it should.he breathes a sigh after a moment. the bubbling starts to sound more calming as he listens, less like a crackling jutsu and more like a warm fireplace, and iruka scoops up half his mushrooms in both hands, ready to pour them into the broth.maybe,he thinks briefly,maybe this will turn out okay.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto (mentioned), Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	i love you. i want us both to eat well.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "our beautiful life when it's filled with shrieks" by christopher citro

Iruka carefully watches his stove from the stool he had dragged in front of it, heels hooked on the spindles and arms crossed. The chicken broth is supposed to be  _ simmering,  _ according to the hastily jotted recipe he’d gotten from his neighbor down the hall, and Iruka is loath to admit he doesn’t actually know what simmering was. 

When he’d asked his neighbor, blurting out the first of his many questions about the recipe before she shut the door in his face, she’d said something about  _ bubbling but not boiling. _

So here Iruka is, watching the saucepan for signs of bubbles. 

He feels a bit stupid, with his amaturely chopped mushrooms and kombu to add to the dashi and his clumsy fingers. All for a nine year old he barely knows, all because the kid spends his lunches on the swing alone and never brings a lunch box with him in the mornings. 

All because Iruka wanted to feel like he could help someone. 

God, can he do this? Cooking is something someone teaches you, he’s pretty sure- all the girls he went to school with learned from their moms, and the few boys who could make anything more than passable rice learned from their big sisters or their senseis. 

Iruka never had anyone to teach him how to cook, and he’s not sure if a broth-stained notecard from his neighbor and determination will amount to anything edible. He’s not sure if his shitty ramen will be any better for Naruto than whatever else he’s getting.

The broth makes a soft bubbling noise as it starts to simmer and Iruka startles in his seat, staring at the saucepan with a terror that doesn’t feel as disproportionate as he knows it should. 

He breathes a sigh after a moment. The bubbling starts to sound more calming as he listens, less like a crackling jutsu and more like a warm fireplace, and Iruka scoops up half his mushrooms in both hands, ready to pour them into the broth. 

_ Maybe _ , he thinks briefly,  _ maybe this will turn out okay.  _

Half an hour later he tentatively tastes the dashi and finds it awfully oversteeped. Grimacing, he thinks,  _ well, maybe Naruto won’t care either way. _

Naruto watches with wide, wary eyes as Iruka stirs the ramen noodles in a pot of boiling water with a pair of chopsticks. Iruka tries not to let it bother him- he’s a teacher, for god’s sake, you’d think he’d be used to the feeling of eyes on his back- but he can still feel awkward warmth find its place on his cheeks. 

He hopes Naruto isn’t expecting anything like the ramen he’d taken him out for the week before- making the chashu hadn’t gone any better than the dashi, and his nitamago are more hard- than soft- boiled. 

The younger boy had seemed only a bit less confused about Iruka’s offer this time. Iruka remembers being a child, how he was practically ready to bite the hand of anyone who offered him more than he thought he’d earned. Luckily, Naruto doesn’t seem quite as adverse to being given food, just suspicious. He doesn’t have any of Iruka’s stupid pride.

“So,” Iruka says, lifting a noodle and trying to judge if it’s soft enough to be considered  _ al dante  _ and edible, “how’s school going? I was so busy helping some of the older kids today I barely got to check in on you.”

“It’s fine,” Naruto says, and Iruka can almost  _ hear  _ the dam on his tongue, holding back everything else he has to say.

Iruka doesn’t know what to say to make the kid trust him. He gets it, too, is the worst part. He wouldn’t have trusted an offer that didn’t seem double-edged- hell, he probably still wouldn’t. But now that he’s on the other side, he just wants Naruto to have someone to feed him. He just wants Naruto to eat well. 

Well, maybe not  _ well.  _ Iruka casts a dismal look at his ramen fixings. He wants Naruto to eat  _ enough.  _

He grips the chopsticks a little tighter and stirs the ramen one last time. “Oh, really? I saw you were talking with Sakura at lunch.”

Iruka can’t see Naruto, not when he’s facing the stove, but he can almost feel the kid’s ears perk, the way his chakra brightens at the mention of his puppy crush. “Oh, yeah! Her mom packed her a bento with little cats on it and I thought it was super cute.”

Iruka lifts the pot to pour the noodles into a strainer and tilts his head, humming encouragingly. He tosses the noodles a few times with his chopsticks to try and dry them. He’s not sure if he’s meant to, but he thinks he faintly remembers his mother doing something like that when he was young. 

“She was actually being kinda nice to me, since it was just the two of us, and she was telling me about the tiny little scissors her mom uses to cut the ears out of seaweed to make the faces- she says they’re shaped like a crane, Iruka-sensei, isn’t that so cool?”

Iruka gently lifts a clump of noodles into one of his bowls. He’s dug out the cute plastic ones with red patterns on the sides, the ones he’d splurged on after his chuunin exam and then felt so guilty about that he’d never gotten to using them. Still, he’d figured Naruto would like them just as much as he had, seeing them at the store. “Very cool.” Iruka remembers his friends’ mothers having scissors like that- all different shapes and patterns but all very small, all made for care.

“I know! I told her I thought it was really cool, but then she asked me where my lunch box was, and I- you know, I dunno. I told her I didn’t need a lunch box, because the Hokage gets his lunch delivered by ANBU, and then she told me I was being stupid.” Iruka pauses, halfway through shoveling the other half of the noodles into another bowl. Naruto’s words send a strange pang through him, and he has to swallow roughly before he can go back to serving their meal. “She gave me a carrot, though,” Naruto continues, “before her friends came over. It tasted kinda gross.”

Iruka doesn’t like carrots either, but he doesn’t think he should tell that to a nine year old, especially not when he’s in a position of authority. “Oh?”

“Vegetables are gross,” Naruto concludes. “Believe it!”

“Do you think so? You’ll probably grow out of that. If you really become the next Hokage, you’ll have to eat your vegetables.”

Iruka takes the dashi he’d preheated and pours it onto the bowls, splashing a few droplets awkwardly onto his counter. He frowns at the puddles for a moment before continuing to assemble their dishes, attempting to arrange their chashu like a hand of cards like it comes at Ichiraku and splitting Naruto’s nitamago. It doesn’t run, but Iruka hopes the kid won’t notice. 

“Ew,” Naruto says, “and I doubt that old man’s ever touched a vegetable. That’s why he looks so ancient.”

“Hey!” Iruka snaps, “Don’t talk about him like that. I’m sure you’ll look just like that when you’re his age.”

Naruto snorts. “I’ll be lucky if I get that far,” he says offhandedly, and before Iruka can process that sentence the kid’s bounded over to where he’s standing at the counter, fidgeting in place and adjusting those stupid googles of his. “Didja make that ramen, Iruka-sensei?” he asks, eyes wide, and all of a sudden it seems like any progress Iruka had made toward getting him to open up was gone, the overwhelmed-wary kid back almost immediately.

“Uh,” Iruka says, flushing and grateful that blush doesn't show up much on his dark skin, “I mean, I tried. I’m not very good at it yet, but I can’t afford to keep buying you meals from Ichiraku and I don’t want to make you go hungry. Or force vegetables on you,” Iruka adds teasingly. He doesn’t think he ate more than seven vegetables his whole teenage years.

Naruto doesn’t laugh at the joke, just watches Iruka carry the bowls to the table and Iruka can feel his gaze boring into the back of his vest. He’s not sure what to do with the sudden change in mood, until Naruto stops him from sitting down at the table with a single small arm. 

His face is open and almost… confused, Iruka thinks. “Iruka-sensei,” Naruto says, “did you make that ramen for me especially?”

Did Iruka-  _ Oh.  _

Iruka grins and puts one of the bowls in front of the chair Naruto had been at, pushing a pair of chopsticks with it. “Yeah, kid. I’ll try to get better at it for you, too, but no promises.”

There’s a pause, somehow both heavy and the easiest thing Iruka’s ever sat through. He’s suddenly reminded of just how much of a child Naruto is- not an adult Iruka needs to impress, not a fox masquerading as a kid, but a little boy who just needs someone to care about him. 

Finally, Naruto grins blindingly, eyes scrunched up and teeth flashing. “Thanks! It’s okay if it’s bad. I can’t cook either, believe it!”

Iruka chuckles and splits his dry nitamago. “Somehow, I don’t have much trouble believing it.”

“Iruka-sensei,” Naruto whines, “the lunch you gave me had vegetables in it.”

Iruka looks up from his paper-laden desk to where the boy is standing, arms crossed glumly over the edge. “Naruto,” he says sternly, “you’re supposed to be eating your food outside.” He doesn’t give Naruto any special treatment in school, which means only giving him his lunches before they get to the academy and not fielding complaints about the sliced cucumber he’d fit in next to the rice. 

Naruto sighs and rests his face in his hands. “I guess you don’t really care about me,” he says glumly, and Iruka grinds his teeth. 

He knows he’s being baited. He knows. The little brat figured out months ago that the food Iruka was giving him was a genuine expression of affection and he’s been using it to his advantage ever since. “Naruto,” Iruka says again. “You need to eat vegetables if you want to get big and strong. I wasn’t kidding when I said the Hokage needs to eat things that aren’t ramen.”

“But I  _ do  _ eat other things,” Naruto says, “like milk. And the rice you  _ usually _ put in my lunches.”

Iruka resists the urge to pull a face at the mention of the rice he makes the kid- it’s always a little bit burnt and a little bit undercooked. He thinks he’s getting better, at least. “You’re not getting any vitamins that way,” he says gently, “that’s just carbs and proteins.”

“So?” Naruto says. Iruka feels his expression tighten.

_ Who put this kid in charge of his own nutrition?  _

“Go back outside and eat your cucumbers with the rest of the kids,” Iruka says in his best  _ I’m your teacher, not your older brother  _ voice. It seems to work a little, Naruto shrinking back from the desk and making a put-upon noise. Iruka softens. “Giving you vegetables doesn’t mean I don’t care about your happiness, Naruto, it just means I want you to be healthy too.”

Naruto grumbles something inaudible in a tone that makes Iruka’s brow furrow.

“What?”

“I dunno why you’re so concerned about it,” Naruto repeats, louder but without meeting Iruka’s eyes. “Everyone says that you eat vegetables so that you can stay strong when you’re old. I just need to live long enough to make them regret being mean to me, and anyway everyone says I’m not going to live long enough to get old anyway, so why does it matter?”

_ Fuck  _ is all Iruka can think for a moment, going white-knuckled around his grading pen. “I- they’re not right,” he says. “A lot of shinobi live to retirement-age and I bet all of them are grateful they had someone to make them eat their vegetables.”

This is wildly out of Iruka’s depth, and it feels strange to scramble for the right words to say- the ones that will seem genuine without being cheesy. He wonders if this is how his own sensei felt when he’d asked her if he could still be important even if he became a teacher, when he showed up at her house after months of eating nothing but ramen and so touch starved he almost started crying when she ruffled his hair. 

He hates how much he sees himself in Naruto- he doesn’t want the kid to have to go through what Iruka went through, he doesn’t want  _ anyone  _ to, but he’s not sure he’s good enough to be the one that cares.

Naruto won’t meet Iruka’s eyes, which is the warring with, well,  _ everything else  _ for the most off-putting part of this conversation. The kid thrives on eye contact and attention.

“Naruto,” Iruka says, leaning over his desk, “hey. They’re wrong. It matters. Your little life matters for more than just proving something to them.”

Naruto  _ whimpers,  _ a noise Iruka hasn’t heard from anyone but his friends’ two year old kids right before they start bawling. Iruka reaches out to ruffle his hair and leaves his hand nestled in bright blond hair. 

“I’m going to make you eat your vegetables,” Iruka starts, and Naruto looks up with wide eyes at Iruka’s severe tone. Iruka does his best teacher smile, feeling it melt into something more familiar and not trying to fix it, “because I know that you’re worth more than a warm body on the field, okay? You’re going to do great things once you’re too old to throw a kunai, and this is me betting on that. Throwing in my chip.”

Naruto sniffles and leans into Iruka’s hand awkwardly. Iruka wonders, briefly, when the last time someone touched him affectionately was. “Do you really think so?”

“Duh,” Iruka says, “You only had the best pre-genin teacher ever.”

“Mneh,” Naruto says indignantly, “not just because of you!”

Iruka hums agreeably and tousles Naruto’s hair one last time before pushing him away from the desk. “Now, go! Those vegetables aren’t going to eat themselves, you know.”

“Iruka-sensei,” Naruto says, with his face set and his new hitai-ate slipping down his forehead, “I need you to teach me how to make ramen.” He pauses. “Please.”

Iruka stretches along his couch. His wound is healing nicely, according to the nurse who he’d checked in with a few days ago, and he’s relatively capable of doing all the things he does in a normal day, but he’s still been spending a lot of time on his couch. His friends have taken turns bringing him food of varying quality, ignoring his insistences that he’s fully capable of wandering into his kitchen to make cup noodles. 

Naruto’s been by almost every day, too, ready to tell Iruka about his new adventures as a genin. It’s mostly variations on the same five complaints, sprinkled with exclamations about the candies Kakashi had tossed them after they caught the last runaway dog or muttering about how Sasuke doesn’t understand that eating dirt is okay when it’s just on a freshly-picked carrot.

Naruto’s warmed up to carrots over the last few years. Iruka likes to think that’s partially his influence. 

“You want to cook?” Iruka says, eyebrows raised. Naruto looks offended by his evident doubt, and Iruka holds up both hands. “Hey, calm down, I’m just saying that maybe we should start with something simpler. Even I knew how to make things like omurice before I learned how to make you ramen.”

“Hmph,” Naruto says, “and it’s still the only thing you can make.”

Iruka chuckles. He’s found he has a lot more tolerance for Naruto’s back talk when he’s not trying to teach the kid practical skills all day. “I never said you need to progress past ramen, just that you should build up to it. There are steps that go into all the different parts, you know.”

Naruto grumbles something, then says, “maybe it’d be easier to just get him some cup noodles or something. Those are yummy enough and even an idiot like him can boil water.”

That catches Iruka’s interest and he props his elbow on the arm of his couch, wincing when the movement pulls the tender skin of his back. “Are these friendship noodles?”

“That’s not a thing!” Naruto says loudly, bouncing onto the other end of the couch and pulling his knees to his chest. “and I  _ don’t  _ want to be his friend. I’m just worried he’s not getting enough to eat, since I wasn’t either.”

“I- are you talking about Sasuke?” He and Sakura are the only other kids Naruto’s interacting with- at least, that Iruka knows of- and he knows Sakura has the kind of mother who makes her bento boxes the night before. 

Naruto crosses his arms. “Yeah,” he says, “but not to be nice. I just don’t want him to have to be hungry. I’m pretty sure Kakashi-sensei doesn’t either, but he’s too lame to actually do anything about it, so it falls to me.”

It  _ shouldn’t  _ fall to Naruto, Iruka thinks, just like Naruto shouldn’t have fallen to Iruka, but it has. It’s all Iruka can do to help a bit, he thinks. “That’s admirable, Naruto,” he says softly, and Naruto brightens. 

“You think so?”

It makes Iruka… happy, at least a little, the way Naruto still flowers under his praise like it’s some kind of life-giving thing. It worries him a little too, because he sees the pride Naruto takes from simple affirmations and the way he strives after them, beaming up at Iruka after he does something good like a puppy waiting for a pat on the head, and he knows exactly how easily someone could take advantage of that.

Not that Iruka would let them. Iruka is going to keep Naruto under his wing and feed him ramen and love until nothing can hurt him ever again. 

“I do,” he agrees, and slowly turns to put his feet on the floor and face Naruto head-on. “Now,” he says, “friendship noodles can’t just be instant ramen, alright?”

“They’re not friendship noodles,” Naruto stresses, “because that’s not a  _ thing.”  _ He still looks intrigued, though, and when Iruka doesn’t elaborate he bounces slightly. “C’mon, Iruka-sensei, how do you make friendsh- ramen?”

“Well,” Iruka says, “they can’t just be instant ramen, because they’re about showing the other person that you care enough about them to put in the time to make it yourself, right?”

Naruto beams, any pretenses he had about just shoving some cup noodles into Sasuke’s arms immediately abandoned. “Yeah! Like the story you told me about how hard it was to make ramen yourself the first time.”

Iruka winces at the memory. “Exactly like that,” he says. He rubs his back gently and holds out a hand. “Help me up, Naruto.”

“Old man,” Naruto says gleefully, but crosses his arms to grab Iruka’s hands and haul him to his feet. When Iruka lets go Naruto over-corrects and almost falls backwards from his own weight, tripping over his feet and the edge of the rug beneath them and regaining his balance only through an almost impressive series of wobbles and jumps. Iruka chuckles.

“You know, before you started your genin training, you would have fallen straight on your face.”

Naruto looks darkly at Iruka and Iruka feels his grin widening. Naruto  _ loathes  _ to admit that anything Kakashi does may have helped him and while Iruka does agree that, at least from Naruto’s recountings, it does seem like the kids are doing most of the work he still enjoys teasing Naruto about his improvements.

“C’mon,” Iruka says, ushering Naruto to the kitchen, “I’ll help you with your friendship noodles so that you can skip the skill-building.”

“They’re  _ not  _ friendship noodles!”

Iruka silently takes the half-jar of remaining dashi from his fridge and sets it on the counter. Naruto peers down at it, then up at Iruka. “What?” he asks finally, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“You want him to be safe and fed, right?” Iruka asks.

Naruto scrunches up his face. “I  _ guess.” _

“And you’re making this ramen for him so that he knows you mean it when you say there’s someone who cares for him, yeah?” Iruka’s glad he spent half a decade teaching Naruto, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to get a single bit of this concept into his thick skull.

Naruto’s suspicious expression turns into a scowl. “Yeah, maybe. Whatever.”

“Friendship ramen,” Iruka concludes, and firmly ruffles Naruto’s hair. “Get the noodles out of the cupboard.”

When Naruto doesn’t immediately leave his side to rifle through Iruka’s sparse cabinets for the specific kind of noodle he likes, Iruka looks down. “What’s up, kiddo?”

Naruto looks uncharacteristically solemn and he reminds Iruka for a fleeting second of the kid he used to be, nervous and unloved, too scared to grin up at Iruka. Then he realizes that this is just Naruto who doesn’t think he needs to smile at Iruka all the time, and warmth bursts in his chest. Maybe he did do something right, along the line of hard-boiled nitamago and oversteeped dashi. 

“Iruka-sensei,” Naruto says, “I don’t think I would know to make Sasuke ramen if you didn’t do it for me when I was little. So, uh, thank you. For caring about me. I really love your ramen, even if you weren’t very good at making it.” He makes a conflicted expression, all his small features screwed up in the middle of his face. “Still aren’t, actually.”

Iruka swats his hair and tries not to show how close he is to crying. “See if I ever make you ramen again!”

He remembers how he felt, trying to make ramen the first time. Foolish, mostly, for putting so much effort into something that wasn’t even for someone he knew- that was for just a random kid in his classes. A little distressed, too, because every wrong move he made was another way that the ramen might turn out some kind of awful that Naruto would reject. But he remembers more than that the deeper feeling of longing, of wishing that someone had taken the time to show him that they cared when he was Naruto’s age. The knowledge that Naruto won’t ever have to feel that ache sits in his ribcage like content.

“I love it anyway,” Naruto promises, and buries his face in Iruka’s vest, hugging him as tightly as he can. “Thank you.” Iruka’s hands fall from the jar of dashi he was opening and he hugs Naruto back, closing his eyes and sighing.

“Thank you too,” Iruka says softly.

_ Maybe they turned out okay.  _

**Author's Note:**

> \- i can talk about naruto using food as a metaphor for caring and say that stuff because it makes me sound smart. did i get past season one of naruto? no. did i spend all of the first season waiting for iruka to make another appearance because he's my new emotional support gay older brother figure? yesyesyesyesyesyes :)  
> \- if you enjoyed this, i'd really appreciate if you left kudos/a comment!! they all make me rly happy :D you can find me on tumblr [@lazypigeon](https://lazypigeon.tumblr.com/).


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